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MAL Ep. 2
In this session, the party continued to investigate their curses, the Magistrate's murder, and the machinations of the demon Chavalk. 1) Kit informed the group that the magistrate's wife, Mrs. Tell, left town on a coach with a man. From the man's description, Seven identified him as Mrs. Tell's brother. 2) Aler and Khirg went to the circus to find the illusionist who works there. She turned out to be a cranky gnome named Tika, who grudgingly agreed to analyze the poltergeist on Aler's shoulder, concluding that it was definitely not an illusion. Khirg also encountered (and wrestled with) a pair of gnoll acrobats, and Angara befriended a circus tiger. The other circus personnel they encountered were a half-elven ringmaster, a sylph dancer, and the jovial beastmaster. The circus will be in session tonight at 7PM. When Aler brought the group by the circus grounds again later, the ringmaster offered Red 25 gold to have Blue run and leap around the arena at the beginning of the show. 3) Jon and Red visited Jen's brothel, where he was enthusiastically received. Jen and the girls chatted for a while, but did not know anything relevant beyond the widespread rumors of the Magistrate's affair with his secretary Carrie. One of the hookers was able to give you her address. 4) Zadkiel and Adriel went to the House of Fantarin to try to have Vyna and Astilla tell them more about Adriel's abyssal aura. They confirmed the findings the paladin gave earlier, but could not divine more. Vyna said that a different High Seeker might be able to help, and mentioned that there is both a High Seeker and the headquarters of the Third Eye in Asture, both of which could run diagnostics. 5) Astilla led the group to Petros' apartments, where the group was prevented entry by a Ducal guard. Seven sneaked invisibly up the stairs and triggered a ghost attack, at which point Jon convinced the suspicious Ducal guard to let them go up to fight the ghosts. After defeating the ghosts and rescuing Seven, she showed them the item she had found on top of the bookshelf which had triggered the ghost attack: a coaster-sized stone disk with a spiral shape on it and a rune scratched on its obverse. Red and Angara managed to sneak into the bedroom and obtain Petros' scent from the bedsheets. 6) Aler noted the rune resembled the letters "SS." Kit later elaborated that she thought the rune resembled the letters "ASS," which she found hysterically funny. Seven gave you a copy of her picture of the disk (which the party had returned to the place where they found it, on top of the bookshelf.) Seven commented that mages often hid things they didn't want people to notice on top of bookshelves; Captain Black later confirmed this was true, since magic items placed there are often obscured from the line-of-sight of Detect Magic spells cast from the ground. 7) Aler tried to use a healing artifact on himself, and to his surprise found that it injured him instead. He later had the belt scanned for curses, and found none. Zadkiel experimented on him with Cure Minor Wounds and Cause Minor Wounds, and found that they had the opposite effects on Aler, as if he were undead. Aler used his superior knowledge of the undead to definitively rule out himself being undead. 8) The group met with the priest of Tallian at Jon's house. While Jon fetched Piper, the priest unexpectedly tried to exorcise Adriel, which did not work. He expressed regret at this, since demonic possession was a problem he knew the solution to. Adriel showed him, and the party, what is truly wrong with her: her face has been replaced by the sinister visage of Chavalk himself, giving her an Abyssal aura and distressing her greatly. The priest said this was likely an arcane curse, but that it was possible Chavalk might try to corrupt her soul, and if she noticed this occurring and was able to get to the Church of Tallian in time, they had resources that could help with that. 9) The priest also affirmed that Piper is not cursed. 10) Piper conversed with Red, who seems to have learned the history of the Avatars while she was away in Overthorn. Piper left and Jon explained what's really going on with Piper: another Avatar is scheduled to take her place as the head Avatar at the summer solstice, which will mean Piper's destruction. Jon and Piper are keen to avert this fate, but there is no normal means of doing so-- since Piper was originally a sacrificial victim who was turned into an avatar instead of dying normally, she cannot be resurrected or reincarnated. The group later approached the priestess of Alayan, the death god, who confirmed this. She would have to be turned from a divine being back into a mortal, which is something no one seems to know how to do but the Fey lords Jon eavesdropped on in the Dreamscape. The priestess recommended talking to a theologian of her faith in Ruastin named Beyond Jessery, or a higher-level city pastor in Asture named Beyond Hathan. 11) Red, Khirg, Aler, and Adriel did some more reconnoitering around town, circling Tell's house and finding no trace of Petros' scent. 12) Jon and Zadkiel spoke to Captain Black, who told them Magistrate Tell had filed no papers at all regarding his hiring of the party, and had taken the money out of his own discretionary fund (legal, but highly out of character.) Jon told her the truth about the Magistrate's interest in the idol of Sholaith and his desire to invade the cult compound despite the Mayor denying his requests to do so. Captain Black retroactively declared Jon, Red, Aler, and Adriel personal security retainers of the Tell family and gave Jon four postdated letters to that effect, along with the keys to Tell's home and office. 13) Jon and Zadkiel shared what happened in Petros' apartments with Captain Black, and she told them more details about the murder investigation. She mentioned Magistrate Solon and the Ducal Emissary as her superiors in this matter, and stated her concerns that the Emissary, the other magistrates, and the Mayor are all under pressure to solve this case and execute somebody for it as quickly as possible, but that political reasons ensure this will not move forward until a mage has arrived to perform a more detailed magical scan on Petros and the leadership of his church has been involved. Captain Black also gave more details about the murder itself: Tell died last night between 10PM and midnight, he was stabbed in the back with a paralyzing dagger and died in bed, and his wife found him the next morning. She had not heard anything in the night, nor had the servants. Their two children were not at home. Tell was contacted via Speak With Dead and had not witnessed the identity of his killer, since he was stabbed in the back and paralyzed. The murder weapon was recovered from Petros' apartments, and had his fingerprints on it. The High Priest of Tallian affirms that Petros was not possessed at the time of examination (this morning.) 14) Reconvening, the group went to examine Tell's office. The Ducal guard let them in but told them not to remove anything, and they cooperated with that. Going through Tell's overstuffed filing cabinets would take days, but the guard helped them find the file on Petros, which had absolutely no mention of any personal relationship between the two men at all (just some back and forth memos about attempts to use Raise Dead during the nightmare plague.) Zadkiel and Aler found a combination safe behind a painting, and Adriel correctly guessed that Tell's combination was "1-2-3-4-5." Inside the safe was a purse of coin, 12 vials of unidentified liquid, and a stack of racy letters from Carrie the secretary, which Jon insisted the team copy down word for word. The group then sent a message to Captain Black about their findings in the safe. 15) The session ended with the party at the temple of the death god Alayan in the docks district. Game on! Laura